Johnny’s summer midweek retreat offers the possibility of recovery, renewal and regeneration. Using a variety of traditional yoga preparations and practices, participants will learn how recognising awareness and simply being offers us the opportunity to let go of busyness, return to Centre and start afresh.
Shifting Our Perspective
This popular and transformative course helps us respond to life with a sense of internal quiet and clarity by shifting our perspective from being caught up in our thoughts to observing them without being swept away.
This shift aligns with the 3rd verse of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras:
1.3 Tada drastuh svarupe vasthanam – Then the Seer rests in conscious awareness, which exists as and of itself.
We can experience a conscious awareness that remains untouched by life’s inevitable ups and downs. Rather than being defined by changing moods or external events, we can return to our essential self; an unchanging source of clarity that underlies all experience.
By becoming the seer, we can cultivate a reliable self-awareness that empowers us to negotiate life with clarity, resilience, and conscious choice. Leave feeling restored, with a renewed perspective that you can carry into day to day life.
Structure and Practices
Through an even balance of breath work, movement, relaxation and meditation, we can develop a clear space for deeper insight and consistent inner stability. This retreat is open to everyone so the posture work is slow and gentle and therefore suitable for complete beginners and those with conditions for which strenuous exercise is not advised. Complete beginners as well as more experienced practitioners and teachers are all welcome.
Preparations
Breath Work: To steady the nervous system through breath awareness, abdominal breathing, viloma, and anuloma viloma.
Movement: To release tension and inhabit the body through joint releasing sequences, hip opening series, spinal movements, as well as back and abdominal strengthening.
Relaxation: To access a state of conscious rest via Yoga Nidra (a withdrawal of the senses leading to conscious sleep) and Yoga Nyasa (directed awareness synchronised with the breath).
Practices
Meditation: To view our internal experience exactly as it is using the meditative techniques of Kaya Sthairyam (body stillness)
Antar Mouna (inner silence}
Ajapa Japa (repetition of mantra synchronised with the breath)
Chidekasha Dharana (awareness of the space of consciousness).
Timetable
Tuesday: Begins after supper at 7.00 pm.
Wednesday & Thursday: 10.00 am to 12.30 pm and 3.00 pm to 5.30 pm (with breaks).
Friday: 10.00 am to 12.30 pm (with a break, finishing in time for lunch at 12.30 pm).
What to Bring
Please bring comfortable layers of clothing so that you can move freely yet remain warm. The joint releasing movements can actually lower body temperature. Please bring your own mat, sitting block or cushion and a blanket.
Johnny can be contacted at www.jgyoga.co.uk
